Real or altered counters

[reglanet]

I find it strange that high production equipment is sold with 400,000 / 500,000 copies.
Ricoh C651 / 751, Ricoh C5100, Ricoh MP9002 etc. Can this be true? How can I know if the
counters were reduced by some pirate? Is there any way to know?

[JDYAL]

Re: Real or altered counters

The MP 9002 has an mechanical counter inside the front door. You just have to peel off a little gray decal. Most bigger machines have a mechanical counter. All the Wide format B/W machines have an external mechanical counter.

[FrohnB]

Re: Real or altered counters

I don't remember on these units, but I think they have a Mechanical counter hidden somewhere behind a cover inside the front door (I may be wrong). I have also posed this question to our service manager and other techs in the past thinking it odd that we've received some with 100k - 200k total on them (Pro C751 and C8002). Manager said "It could be a company that bought one and then went out of business in a short time". Who knows! I do believe that it's pretty hard to mess with the meters on a machine (unless it's an NVRAM change, which will zero out the counter that you see on display and then go up from that point on).

[JDYAL]

Re: Real or altered counters

I find 9002 from a reputable company that I've used before with less than 350,000 sometimes. I always check the mechanical counters and they have always matched.

[ZOOTECH]

Re: Real or altered counters

A low meter on large production machines is, most likely, the salesman's "over sale".

[copyman]

Re: Real or altered counters

I agree most of the time the low meters are legit and over sold by a salesman as the other posted suggested. I would actually trust an electronic counter more than a mechanical, but having both on a machine is best. I have seen machines where the mechanical counters have been opened and rolled back. I've had some where the elec & mech numbers don't match. I just won't buy these machines. There are instances when NVRAM, etc are replaced and the reason meters don't match. And of course there are pirate dealers who turn back meters. They are thieves and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. These are the same dealers who swap consumables, bad boards, etc with machines going back to leasing companies. Then an independent like me buys one of these swapped out off lease machines thinking it has a nice low meter only to find out I got screwed!

[MP C5502 Fan]

Re: Real or altered counters

You know for some people having something really fast is just the issue.

[paulg]

Re: Real or altered counters

Just to add, I would check the DF and Platen scans, plus inspect visually in detail covers off etc. It's not unknown for some devices to end up scanning far more than they do print nowadays. I have also seen customers need a loan machine as a issue with their original device was thought to be having major issues and might need to be swapped out then suddenly a solution is found.
In some very wealthy companies where the print room has a standby machine (Which rarely gets used as they were lucky with downtime) or just as likely the print room fits three devices (for the sake of argument) and there are two operators, the two operators both have a favourite machine and only use the third when they have to as further from their desks.

[mikadonovan]

Re: Real or altered counters

I agree most of the time the low meters are legit and over sold by a salesman as the other posted suggested. I would actually trust an electronic counter more than a mechanical, but having both on a machine is best. I have seen machines where the mechanical counters have been opened and rolled back. I've had some where the elec & mech numbers don't match. I just won't buy these machines. There are instances when NVRAM, etc are replaced and the reason meters don't match. And of course there are pirate dealers who turn back meters. They are thieves and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. These are the same dealers who swap consumables, bad boards, etc with machines going back to leasing companies. Then an independent like me buys one of these swapped out off lease machines thinking it has a nice low meter only to find out I got screwed!

I ran into a preowned pro 907 a while back that had a low electronic meter, but found out the mechanical meter had over 2 mil on it. I purposefully looked for the mech meter because there were some inconsistencies in the SMC (found its location in the parts catalog).

[sturmtrooper]

Re: Real or altered counters

I ran into a preowned pro 907 a while back that had a low electronic meter, but found out the mechanical meter had over 2 mil on it. I purposefully looked for the mech meter because there were some inconsistencies in the SMC (found its location in the parts catalog).

Could be the NVRAM was replaced at some point. Or could be they were trying to put one over on you.

The MP 9002 has an mechanical counter inside the front door. You just have to peel off a little gray decal. Most bigger machines have a mechanical counter. All the Wide format B/W machines have an external mechanical counter.

I don't think the 9002 has one. I know the 6002 and 7502 don't. I'll have to check next time I'm working on one of the 9002s we have in the field.


Additionally I think mechanical meters are a lot more common in machines sold in North America than in other places. At least I've seen several "NA Only" remarks on mech meters.

[fshead]

Re: Real or altered counters

As i have not sold a new machine in over 10 years I can sense if some units might be fishy.
Most lease returns never care about meter and the only issue one could have is
warehouse tech swapping out a fuser unit or drum etc etc to a different machine.
I try to tip my warehouse guys lunch money to have an extra set of eyes on my bought stuff.
as for low meter returns,i one got a unit back that had 2k b/w copies and "15" color...
go figure

[JDYAL]

Re: Real or altered counters

20180810_151811.jpg Inside door 9002 with decal pulled back. Had this machine at the shop

[reglanet]

Re: Real or altered counters

[QUOTE = JDYAL; 693180] 20180810_151811.jpg

[copyman]

Re: Real or altered counters

Nothing special about opening a mechanical meter but you can always tell it was open by marks, broken plastic, etc.

[slimslob]

Re: Real or altered counters

Nothing special about opening a mechanical meter but you can always tell it was open by marks, broken plastic, etc.

And just in case someone thinks that they can just disconnect the counter, it will make 1 copy and then error. You can reboot and make another copy but who wants to cycle power for each copy.